We have the word of
America's irreverent reverends that
the restoration of John C.
Calhoun's peculiar institution is the
very point of the election of
George W. Bush. This is what's at
stake in the confirmation of the
Confederates in George W.'s
Cabinet. Lincoln foresaw this and
said it would be OK: The union
restored without disturbing slavery.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson warns
that George W.'s nominees to the
U.S. Supreme Court are likely to
restore the infamous Dred Scott
decision, which held that slaves had no right to citizenship.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the noted storefront theologian and
Brooklyn divine, reveals a chilling premonition, saying darkly:
"I would not meet with Bush alone." It's not clear what that
means, but the men in the Bush inner circle understand that Al
is the last man standing who can thwart their scheme to
dispatch the U.S. Navy to Africa to buy more slaves. (The
Sudan is selling.)

Only yesterday, Gale A. Norton, the attorney general of
Colorado, George W.'s nominee for secretary of the Interior,
was exposed for asserting in 1996 that states "lost too much"
of their rights when the Confederacy was defeated in 1865.

The conspiracy may reach far deeper than a casual
reading of the evidence suggests, with tentacles into both
Democratic and Republican places. Consider these remarks
of Kenneth A. Cook, president of the Environmental
Working Group, ostensibly (but not really) rebuking Mrs.
Norton for her invoking the Confederacy in defending states'
rights. "Her deeply divisive remarks suggest she lacks a vital
instinct to protect what needs protecting, whether it's the
wilderness or the rights of people of color," Mr. Cook told
The Washington Post. Note well how he gives equal weight
to the "wilderness"  the rights of snail darters, stump moss
and albino squirrels  and the rights of "people of color."
What could be a plainer signal to environmentalists that the
restoration of slavery is nigh?

Which brings us to John Ashcroft, whose defeat at the
hands of Jean Carnahan made him available to be George
W.'s attorney general. The CIA could easily have arranged
that plane crash only a fortnight before the election, a tragedy
for Mel Carnahan, a good career move for the widow and a
crucial twist of the plot to restore slavery. Wasn't George
W.'s daddy once the director of the CIA? Do you have to
ask?

The carefully contrived Democratic "opposition," so
called, to Mr. Ashcroft is further evidence that the slave
auctions in Charleston and New Orleans will be reopening
soon. The Baltimore Sun  Baltimore was a hotbed of
seccesh sentiment only yesterday  published a remarkable
essay on Sunday pretending to decry the Ashcroft
nomination. It was headlined, with evident subversive pride:
"A Confederate in the Cabinet." The crackle of the crinoline
of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, dancing wildly in
the streets of Baltimore, has been deafening all week. The
author of the piece, the executive director of something called
the Institute for Public Accuracy, never once not even
once  bothered to apply the adjectives "dreadful,"
"appalling," "frightful," "ghastly," "atrocious," "gruesome,"
"heinous," or "monstrous" to slavery, so we know what he
really thinks of the peculiar institution.

Or consider the peculiar statement of Ralph G. Neas, the
chairman of People for the American Way, which pretends to
oppose the nomination: "John Ashcroft might make an
excellent choice to head the Christian Coalition or the
National Rifle Association . . .." Why is this man saying nice
things about the man George W. chose to restore slavery in
America? Not once in his remarks did Mr. Neas say that
slavery is "despicable," "loathsome," "repulsive," "vile,"
"detestable" or "contemptible," as political correctness
demands. To apply fewer than six of these adjectives at least
twice in any speech (or column) about slavery is a sign of
nostalgia for slavery and proof of membership in the Ku Klux
Klan.

And what are we to make of the behavior of the favorite
grandson of Flem Snopes, now on his endless farewell tour of
the land to say goodbye to the people who gave him two
terms as president of the United States? He is busily
undermining the legitimacy of the government of the man
Americans elected to succeed him, behavior unprecedented
in the nation's history.

Mr. Clinton relishes the description of himself, first applied
by the fictionist Toni Morrison, as "our first black president."
But the president is also a descendant of a Confederate
soldier of a Mississippi regiment, which no doubt explains
why he is doing absolutely nothing to help Jesse and Al
prevent the restoration of slavery. This is no half-vast
conspiracy.

01/10/01: Mr. Lott's generosity to the Dems01/05/01: Looking to the past for a bad example 01/03/01: A modest proposal for Arkansas folk12/19/00: The reflexive sneer at George W. Bush12/15/00: Taking inspiration from John Birch12/12/00: It's time to raise high Florida's standards12/08/00: A President Bush, and about time, too12/05/00: Here come the judge --- and he's got a hook11/28/00: Cry no tears for Al, lawyers are the losers11/21/00: The useful loathing of America's sons11/17/00: When this is all over, we spray for lawyers11/14/00: Something murky in the twilight zone